About

Mission

Ten Thousand Things brings lively, intelligent, professional theater to people with little access to the wealth of the arts - who in turn help our artists and traditional audiences re-imagine what theater can be.

Vision

Ten Thousand Things will continue to be a significant force in the American theater, inspiring its audiences and the field with its unique model of high quality, low cost, accessible theater and transformative outreach. We aim to brighten the future of theater through our successes in Minnesota and across the country because we know that theater is richer when everyone is in the audience.

Bold universal stories - full of hard questions, complicated and hopeful - that speak to the human experience and help us to discover all that we share in common

A working environment that offers trust, room for creativity and equal participation, and that fosters laughter, play and joy

Our performance model

At our performances, audiences experience theater in its most vital, elemental form. We don't use a stage; rather, we perform on the floor inside a circle of chairs, with the lights on so everyone can see each other, with minimal sets and live music. The result is a performance that engages the imagination of our audiences. Through this dynamic exchange, artists and audience breathe new life into theater together reminding us that theater is essential to all of our lives. We do not preach easy answers to life's difficulties and seek to transcend the perceptions of class, race, education and life experience that often divide us.

Our performance locations

Our free performances are at homeless shelters, correctional facilities, low-income senior centers, reservations, after-school programs, women's shelters, and locations in rural Minnesota — any place we can reach people who do not have easy access to the wealth of the arts! We also perform for paying audiences at Open Book and MN Opera Center.